favorites all around

I'm a little late to blog today...by little I mean a lot. I had a lovely weekend making another mural at the C Gallery on Saturday, selling some watercolors at a wine event Sunday and hanging with the boy Monday. Then today I helped some 1st graders do a sidewalk mural! It has been a busy and art filled weekend...the best kind if you ask me. 

As a result, I'm blogging for the Every Day in May challenge at 11:15 at night. I liked Sunday's topic too so I'm going to do a combo post since it's all about favorites! Sunday: your favorite blogs and why, & Tuesday: your favorite posts in your archives. 

First up, my favorite blogs! I have so many favorite blogs. Really, my Bloglovin' feed is out of hand. But I can't help it! It took a little work but I narrowed down my favorites a bit...

• F*yeah, Book Arts! has such a great collection of artist books, tutorials and more. The first time I found them I spent days clicking back through the archives. 
• Julie Ann Art is a recent find but a huge favorite. Her blog is so inspiring! Slowly working to join her ranks of living solely off of creating. 
• Design Sponge is probably on most artsy people's favorite list. If it's not already on yours, get to it now! They really have the best collection of art, design, crafts and just overall inspiration.
• A Beautiful Mess is another no-brainer that everyone should have on their blog feed
• The sketching backpacker puts Terzo to shame...seriously...he's incredible...
• Warm Pears by Gina Gomez makes me so homesick for Italy. Every time I look at her photos I fall in love with that country all over again. 
• Silly Grrl is another new love but she's pretty awesome! All the new blog tweaks? Yeaaah they're all thanks to here awesome tips and tricks!
• Kitty and Buck is such a lovely blog! Kitty is such a sweet lady and she has the greatest photos, outfits and pretty much everything! 
• Yum and Yummer is full of tasty recipes and snarky commentary. For the win. 

Some of my favorite blog posts:

I really love this post on all the paper bag projects I made! I still have a mountain of bags waiting to be turned into envelopes, baskets and notebooks!

This doily purse DIY is still one of my favorites, probably because I use the purse so frequently still! Hooray for Mod Podge and it's ability to withstand a beating from the daily life of Chelsea! 

I talk about Terzo a lot on here but this post was not only my first blog post but it was also full of my sketches the first time I went to Italy. I still love flipping through that old sketchbook. 

Friday Link Love

Art by Erin McManness

It has been a while since I last did a Friday Link Love post. There seems to be a plethora of good crafts and products and ideas floating around on the interwebs these days. Must be the sunny pre-summer weather waking everybody up out of the gloomy spring and winter comas! 

Things are certainly waking up here too! I just got a couple more commissions and this weekend is going to be filled with another mural on Saturday and a sketching event on Sunday...hooray for sketching and vino! 

Today is also day 17 in the Blog Every Day Challenge. One of the reasons for this Friday Link Love post is to distract from the topic of today: a favorite photo of yourself and why. I didn't really want to have a whole post dedicated to a photo of me...so I'll distract you with awesomeness from around the blogosphere and if you so choose to see my favorite photo, scroll to the bottom of this post...if you dare! 

Here are some of my favorite things I've found on the interwebs this week:

• That gorgeous purse up above? Remember the talented Erin McManness I had on a Friday Feature awhile back? She's been painting her gorgeous flowers on some purses lately! It's giving me all kinds of ideas and envy for not owning one of these lovely creations! 
• I want this vintage sweater from Love Gazpacho so much it kind of pains me. Mary has such a great collection of items in her Etsy shop, I need mass amounts of monies to buy everything! 
• Rope coil baskets seem to be everywhere right now! I love this rope tutorial from the Red Thread, but also this t-shirt  and homemade bead version from the Corner Blog. 
• Whimseybox has a fantastic series called 1 Material, Many Ways. They just posted one on oven bake clay projects that I'm itching to try! 
• Have you heard of Betty Means Business? I just found this amazing site the other day! It's dedicated specifically to business advice for creative entrepreneurs! Not only does she have a killer sense of humor and awesome tips, she has an E-book too! 
• That photo of the peach tart I almost forgot to share the other day? I made it for a Bocce match and it was pretty incredible...you can find the recipe here on Food & Wine! 

Okay, time for my favorite photo! I really have a lot of favorites but this one is extra special to me. This is from way back in 2009 when I first studied abroad in Italy. It was my first real big adventure out of the US and it sealed my love with that country, which would ultimately turn into a 2+ year adventure! My friend and I went for a walk in the valley below our town, Castiglion Fiorentino, to sketch and see all the wildflowers! Our school was in a converted convent just to the left of the tall bell tower on top of the hill behind me. *sigh* Italia, mi manchi...

a day in the sketchy life

The topic for the Blog Every Day Challenge today is: a day in the life, including photos throughout your typical day! 

I like this days topic a lot, but it is a little impossible for me to show a typical day. Some days are insanely boring...others are filled with crafting and rushing to meet deadlines and filling orders...others are dedicated to prep work and teaching and trying not to go insane. Some days can be really terrible...then others like today are awesome! 

Today I got to go to the gym, I had 2 orders on Etsy (one for my little sketchy notions buttons that I just listed this morning!), my students behaved and cranked out some awesome screen-prints and I had some time for a little thrifting because it was pay day! Now, did I document any of that? Gulp...no... I would have loved to snap some photos of the kiddos printing but having only 30 minutes to supervise and try to instruct nine middle schoolers screen-printing is HARD! Plus my phone would have been covered in 5 different colors of ink so negatory on the photos every hour today. I had every intention of doing a photo an hour this past Saturday at the art market, but after hour 3 of sitting around with nothing happening in the very pretty parking lot, I gave up on that idea. 

Plus, I'm not sure how interesting most of my day would be to any of you out there. It really is impossible to give you an accurate look at a typical day, because the only predictable thing about my days is how random they can be! One minute I'm watercoloring and putting together a contributor DIY post, the next I'm homeschooling and proof-reading depositions. So instead, I'll give a glimpse at some highlights from the past week! 

This one is from the morning of the market. I couldn't sleep so I was up before 6 and was able to admire the morning fog

6:59 am leaving for the market! 

Remember when I mentioned I was in a cell phone photo show at the C Gallery? My Lucca Chess Men and the Piazza San Michelle after a storm both made it into the show!

It's been about 4 years since I first went to Italy to study abroad. I've been looking through old photos and making some small watercolors for a sketching event I'll be at this weekend! These are of Florence, Venice and the Pantheon in Rome. 

Packaging up my little button! It is en-route to its new home now...

Even more little watercolors! Siena, Rome and two of Castiglion Fiorentino.

Edit: not sure how I managed to forget this last  photo but I had to make sure I shared it! 

White Peach Tart! 

a moment today

Day 9 in the Blog Every Day Challenge! Today is a photo of a moment from today. It has been a busy morning! I managed to crank out six watercolors for framed mini illustrations for the market on Saturday! Still so much left to do but it's a nice feeling to look at all of these lovelies spread out. There's also a new illustration of Lumen in there too...something is in the works...but alas, it is time to get back to work. So news on Lumen another time! 

branching out with spoonflower

My newest book cover designs!

It's day 8 on the blog every day challenge...so far I'm not doing too well with the challenge of blogging every day... Oh well, so be it. This week has been pretty crazy with market prep and working, and naturally, seeing as it is almost the 11th hour, I decided to carve and print new designs for book covers... and take on a quick house sitting gig... AND I'm brainstorming a 52 week challenge... 

I have the nasty habit of throwing many MANY things on my plate at once, so we shall see how this all turns out, blogging challenge included. And I'm a bit of a procrastinator (no surprise there..) but who says you can't start a 52 week project in the middle of the year? Just so long as you finish all 52 weeks of it, why would it matter when it starts! Plus, my 25 before 26 list didn't tie in with the start of the year so it seems to be a trend with my goal lists...

Anyways, the prompt for the Blog Every Day Challenge today is to write about a piece of advice you have for others. It's a little vague, so I'm going to direct it more towards other weird/artsy/creative/doubley weird people. My advice would be, don't be afraid to try new mediums and branch out. Before I went to Texas, I never had an interest in printmaking. Three years after college and I can't imagine my life without printmaking. Printmaking led to bookmaking and children's book illustrating, another thing I can't imagine not doing now. This bit of advice can be applicable to pretty much all aspects of life, but for creative types I think experimenting and branching out can be so important and useful in the long run. 

So in an effort to branch out this week, I opened a Spoonflower shop! Have you heard of Spoonflower before? It's a site where you can upload designs and people can order your designs as decals, wallpaper, giftwrap and FABRIC! How cool is that?! I still have to proof the designs to make them available for sale but check out my little Spoonflower shop if you'd like. Also this week until Sunday, there's free shipping available on my Society 6 shop too! Need a gift for Mother's Day? She may be a bit biased but my mum loves her Lovely Owl cell phone cover! 

my favorite quote

It's not exactly news that I'm not the most consistent blogger. I think last spring I had a streak of 6 days in a row, and I did manage to keep the Friday Features regularly for over 2 months at one point! I'm always torn between just keeping this little space in the blogosphere as a designated art/Etsy/findings space or making it a more typical blog. Not that it has to be either. I've liked it being the way it is and serving its purpose, but I also don't want to feel awkward when I want to blog just for the sake of blogging. 

So in an effort to try and just blog, I'm going to try tackling some of the topics from the Blog Every Day in May Challenge from Jenni's blog, Story Of My Life. First off, I'm already a few days late into the challenge. And I know right now I'm obviously not going to end up accomplishing all of them. But it wouldn't hurt to try accomplish some of them right?

Day 4 of the challenge is your favorite quote and why you love it...

I love this quote from F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I first heard this quote when I was leaving Italy for the first time back in 2009. My RC friend that I made at the Study Abroad center wrote it in my sketchbook with the hope that it would make leaving Italy less painful. It did. It has since become sort of a tradition for me to write this quote in every sketchbook I have now. I even tried translating it into Italian this last trip in Terzo. 

We will see how this blogging challenge goes. Anybody else want to join in the challenge? Or do you have a favorite quote?